Light up the night...

So I have been a little behind on this blog but after next Friday I will be more on top of it. Next Friday is our RELAY!!!!

Today I just wanted to post something real fast that I thought was a great idea and will be doing it next year for our Relay. We are going to sell luminaries for people to have at their house the night of relay to light themselves. I called it "Light Up The Night, Finish The Fight." There was a relay down in Texas that had the idea and I loved it. Just selling the bags to people to light at their house at the time when your luminaries ceremony is (our is at 10:00pm) and then the name of the person in memory or in honor of will be read at the Relay. Same price as if you was there but you are at your house and we light up the town not just the Relay!!!

This is the flyer I made for it this year and just posted it on Facebook but next year it will be one of our main fundraisers.

Family Fun Day and Car Show!!

So yesterday was our Family Fun Day and Car show!!! It was a success!! I am so proud of the teams and all the help we got. If it wasn't for every ones help the day wouldn't have been so great!! The numbers are still coming in but from what I can see we did awesome for our first year. So a recap of what went on Saturday. 

First we started off with our 5K Family Fun Run/Walk. One of the teams, the 301 Thunder, put this all together. The registration forms, the flyers, the t-shirts and the set up was all them. They had 73 participants and they included family teams, individuals, and teams. Some the teams put together t shirts which I thought was a great idea!! 

The next was the Car Show. There was a total of 28 cars or so. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I learned a lot of stuff that I am going to use next year. Next year will be bigger and better. 

There was a guy there who won the Relay Committee Award that had an awesome truck there. This award was decided by 3 of us. We just thought that this truck had the Relay Spirit!!

Inside and Outside we had crafts/vendor booths. We have almost 40 or so. A few team even had a booth to sell stuff for their team. This really helped a few teams get closer to their goals. Here are just a few of the booths we had out there. 

One team (a new one as of Saturday) thought it was a good idea to have a kids area. She sold wristbands $5.00 for a day of jumping or $1.00 for 20 mins. 

All in all it was a wonderful day and we made some money for cancer research. I will be putting totals up soon.

Thank you for stopping by and taking a look at what we did at our Family Fun Day and Car Show in Cordell, Oklahoma. If you would like info on how we did any of our activities just let me know and I will let you know.

<3

Sarah

Paint the County Purple

So today I did a video to show you how I got out Purple In Memory/In Honor of Bows ready for our "Paint the County Purple." The end of the week I will be delievering the bows and painting windows around town. I will have pictures of the windows when they are done.

 

 

I hope you enjoy. More to come!!!

 

 

 

Update to this years Relay

I have working so hard on Relay that I have forgot to keep you up to date!!! There is so much going on...

I first want to show you the paintings that I have been working on. The first one is a ribbon Hope one that I will be auctioning off at your relay.

I am really enjoying painting so I painted this one for the Survivors Dinner. The Survivors will put there finger prints in yellow and then put it on the painting. After that we will auction it off at our Relay. Here is a picture of it....

So the next thing I am going to show you is the centerpieces for our mini Kick-off that will be tomorrow night. We are having a mini Kick-off because the first one this year didn't go very well. No body showed up. And because all of our events are starting up I thought this would be a good idea. So here is the centerpieces that I have made.

I took a mason jar, spray painted it, took sandpaper to the letters and corners, put some flowers in it, and tied a ribbon around it. I am also making food that is to die for. 

Along with all of this stuff we have some big events still ahead. The next big one is the softball tournament. I will post pictures of it next weekend.

So the next thing I am going to be making is my costume for the Custer County Relay. It is a superhero that I have named Purple Passion. She bleeds purple and relaying is what she does. My sister is making me a tutu and I am putting lights in it. I can't wait to show you pictures of that!!

This year has turned out to be the best year that I have ever had with Relay. We have new teams, new survivors, and new committee members!! I will try to keep you up to date. 

<3

Sarah

More fun Stuff...

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I have had A LOT going on. So our Relay is really picking up now. We are going to have some big (local) name people at our Relay. Just announced yesterday we are going to have an emcee from a local news station with hopefully a co emcee who is an anchor for the morning news in Oklahoma City. Then we now for sure can say this too the two guys from Cordell that was on the Amazing Race is going to be there as well!!!! I am so happy I can't even see strait at all. There is more to come but I am so happy with my committee this year. They are pulling every string that they have to make this Relay the best in the WORLD. Well maybe not the World but the best we have ever had.

Our upcoming event is getting big too. We are now doing 10x10 booths outside, there will be a jump house for the kiddos, AND more cars then I ever thought there would be. I can't wait for May 3rd to get here. I was very scared at first but it is coming together better then I thought it would. Cassi, she is from the Relay in Custer County, has made our sign for our "Family Fun Day and Car Show."

 

She did an amazing job on it. It has everything that we are going to be doing. The 5K is coming together as well and Rachel is doing an awesome job. Now I am working on the Paint the County Purple. It is not coming together like I want but I know it will. I am having a hard time picking the prices for the window painting. But again it will come together.

 

 

So some of the fundraisers that we have going on outside of the Family Fun Day and the Relay Event is...Our John Deere Tractor drawing...

 

 

This little Fundraiser is a WONDERFUL one. We got the money donated from a local oil field company (Bronco Oil Services) and then just sell the tickets for $1.00 a piece. I have already sold 50+ ticket in one month and I am not trying at all.

 

The other thing that we are doing is at a local gas station they are giving us a % of the money they make off of soda drinks in May. Last year we make over $500 dollars doing this. It is wonderful and a very easy, do nothing fundraiser.

 

I also have our 2013 T-Shirts on sell. I was told about a company in OKC that helps out nonprofits and they are WONDERFUL!!!! http://cherrytreeworks.com/ Cherry Tree Works...

 

 

We are selling these $10 a shirt (+$2.00 for 2X and larger). Super easy and fun!!

 

This year is already off to a good start. We have raised over $500!!! And we are not done yet.

 

 

 

So the other thing I wanted to talk about it Cassi's February Relay Challenge...

 

 

This idea was great because you are always putting something about Relay on your facebook page this way. I loved reading others ideas and facts. It has really helped me get into the Relay Sprit!!

 

And the last thing I want to talk about is the NEWSLETTER idea that I put up last time. It has made it's rounds on Facebook, Pinterest, and at meeting ALL over the place. I got the idea off line and just made my own. Last week I order post cards of it and they will be sent to the Survivors next month so even they will know what is going. They should be here any day and when they do I will be posting about them!!!

 

So for now I think that is all. I will try to keep this more up to date but for now....

LETS RELAY!!!!!

<3 Sarah









The Fighting Frogs

The Fighting Frogs is the team that I am on for Relay For Life. We was started by a nice lady named Mary Lara. She was diagnosed with colon cancer and the fighting frogs was started.

Mary lived in Burns Flat, Oklahoma. She knew everyone in town and everyone knew her. Everyone helped her out and she would always raise a lot of money. I never met her but I hear stories all the time. I started working at the Tag Office in Burns Flat in Feb of 2011. Mary lost her battle that March. That year for relay was crazy because there was so many donations.

Every year the prison out in our area makes a display for us. (Mary's Son use to work there) The 1st year I was involved it was a big (almost life size) boxing ring where you could get in and take pictures. The next year was a BIG record player that had life size girls cut out and moving about it. Last year I think was the best. I was a frog pond with a HUGE frog on the top. The lily pads had the different color ribbons on it. (Pictures down below) This year I don't think they can make anything but if they can I am going to get the counties cut out and put them around the track. Our theme is The Amazing Race Against Cancer. I just don't know how to decorate our team but I am sure with bing, google, and pinterest out there I will figure out something. If you have any ideas for a simple tent for the Amazing Race let me know down in the comment box.

Thank you for reading and keep looking back for some awesome stuff.

Thank You~
Sarah

Relay For Life Fun Day

Sorry I haven't put to much up here lately. I have been very busy with my job and family. Life can get a little crazy around my house.

Sooo.....Relay Season is in full swing. We had our 1st meeting of the year and with only 5 people there we got a lot done.

#1 Our relay is from 6 to midnight. For some of you relayers out there this is different. Well at the past Relays people started going home at midnight. So they decided that we will just end it at that time. A little back story to this is we are a small relay. We might have 10 teams and raise only $20,000. But that is NOT going to keep us down at all!!!!

#2 Our theme is going to be "The Amazing Race Against Cancer" tag line Finish the Fight, Win the Race. We are doing this because two guys from the Amazing Race (for those who don't know is a T.V. show) this last season was from our hometown of Cordell, Oklahoma.

#3 We are going to have a Relay For Life Day. It will start off with a Family Fun 5K Run/Walk. Then on to a Car Show outside and a Craft/Vendor Show inside. With a "Paint the County Purple Weekend." I really don't know what was thinking having EVERYTHING in one day but it will be AWESOME!!!

So the Car Show was the start of it. I am trying to get my husband more involved with Relay and so I took him to an event is a near by county. (I love this group of people and I knew he would too.) He talked to Cassie, she is one of the relayers up there, and thought she was crazy but liked her way of thinking about relay. On the way home he said "Lets do a  Car Show for money." So my brain went into over drive and started coming up with ideas after ideas. Then the Craft/Vendor Show popped into my head. I have seen these at other places and Custer County (the one I get most of my ideas from) had said something about it. So there went my brain again in over drive!!! I was trying to think of all the vendor that I could get...like Scensty or Pampered Chef. Then Cassie had a great idea, she said put it on Facebook on a page called 'Penny Pinchin' Mamas'. It is a page where people in this area can sell items and pick them up at a public location. (like craigslist but for this area) So I made up a flyer and posted it....and the wait began....well only for a moment because before I knew it I had post after post after post... It was sooo cool. I stayed up that night til 10:30 writing everyone and telling them what was going on. I started with no vendor but one my Scensty lady and by the next morning I had 10 vendors and 4 or 5 crafts. I was so happy. Now being 2 days later I have 19 booths total. Here is a list of a few of them...
Damsel in Defense, Classey Linens (Quality Sheets), Plexus, Pink Zebra, Thirty One Bags, Our Heart Desire, and so on.
I am so happy about my list and I know it isn't done yet.
So at the meeting I was telling everyone about this event I was thinking about doing (this is before PPM) and one other the ladies said that she wanted to do her 5K that weekend too. So there was something else to add to the line up. Then I have always wanted to do Paint the Town Purple so we decided to do that weekend too.
Now I am going to break this down a little for the ones who might want to do this in their town. Now I am in charge of the Car/Craft/Vendor Show and the Paint the County Purple, so that is all I am going to cover now. But the 5K will be in other post but the flyer is at the bottom.

So for the Car Show...
I made a flyer online. I used www.picmonkey.com its a website like photoshop which I don't have. Now you can pay for picmonkey and get more stuff but I used just the free stuff because I am poor. (all my money is going to Relay) I just started playing around with the different fonts and pictures that was on there but then I added my own pictures that I found by a Bing search. When you do the bing search left click on the picture you want and save it as a picture to your computer then you can upload it to your picmonkey picture. So after I had the flyer I wanted I saved it.
Now to know what time and how much I went to my husband. I have been to many car shows but never know the whole thing behind it. He told me to put the 1st annual (which it is the 1st one) on the flyer because car people like to get the 1st trophies and awards at an event. Then he said the price should be fair but we are raising money. He asked me if we were going to have t shirts. This is a popular thing to have at car shows. So I went back online and found a website that is really neat. It is called www.teespring.com. This website says "Create & sell t-shirts you can be proud of. Sell high-quality screen printed tees with zero upfront costs and zero risk. We ship directly to buyers, you keep the profit." Now I haven't bought anything and haven't trying the sell out YET, (will let you know) but I did design a shirt on there and got the price per shirt $10.00 each. On the website you can set how many you "want" to sell (like you want to sell 50 shirts but you don't have to sell that many to get the shirt. There is a video on the website that tells you all about it) and you can set the price. So lets say your shirt after designing it cost $9.25 and you want to sell them for $15 each online. Then your profit is what kids...$5.75 on each shirt you sell. So after figuring how much the shirt would be then I set my fee for $25.00 a car with preregistration getting a "free" shirt. Then the profit of each car is $15.00. I am hoping to get 20+ cars so that is a profit for the Relay For Life of...$300.00 just on cars!!! The day of the event the fee is still $25.00 a car and I haven't decided if I want to get some more shirts and sell them that day for $15.00. I will let you know. The preregistration forms ask for their name, year, make, model, address and tells them where to send the money too. They can get these a stores around town like Napa or the gas station or they can email me or call and I will get it to them. There is different website where you can put an upcoming Car Show on it for free. So I went on to a few and put the info up. This does work because I already have a car club from another town thinking about coming. I also own a tag office and I have the forms there with a flyer up. Now the day of the event... I have made up little forms that says #________
Year________ Make _________ Model _________ From _______ and these will be put in the window of the car to let the other car people know what it is and where their from and the # is for the awards. See in the car world the owners of the cars vote for the awards. But I am going to have a Relay Award and the committee will go around and pick their favorite car and that award will go to the car. Now my husband is going to do the voting part because I don't really understand it. at the end of the day we will have a ceremony for the awards to be handed out. I am getting the trophies online for like $6.00 a piece and there is only like 5 trophies this year. (next there maybe more) Again my husband is in charge of that part but if someone wants more info on it I will put a post on here later.

Now on to the Booths....
I made a flyer (down at bottom) and sent it to the people who wants to do a booth. I am changing $20.00 a booth because I don't know the size that we can do for each booth. I am saying the booth size is a 5X5 with a little wiggle room but when we get there that might get bigger. If someone wants 2 booths then the price is $30.00. The building that we are having it at cost (they wouldn't donate it) but I am paying for it myself. But if you don't think you can afford that cost then just add more to the booth price. So the money that I am getting for the booths are pure profit. So if I have 19 booths now and they go for $20.00 a piece with one person getting 2 booths my profit is $390.00 so far. Now at the meeting I was thinking that not all this money should go to one team so I said that I would split it with all the teams. But I have a great committee and they said this..."What if we try to get booths too? Then whatever your team gets the money will go towards your team and whatever money we get goes towards our team." So that is how we are doing it. But here is the hard part...because we don't want 2 of the same vendor (like 2 Pampered Chefs) we are always trying to talk to one another to see if the other one has that yet. Really that part isn't that hard you just have to KEEP talking to one another. Now on the craft part we don't care if there is 2 or 3 because we look at it this way...if someone is selling bows and this one has just a pink one and this other one has just a blue one then we now have one pink and one blue. Make Sense Right!!??
This booth part is pretty easy, just make sure you know how big your area is and how many you can fit in there. I wish I had an idea on this one but that is OK. There other thing we are do is we are having each team, if they want, setting up a booth. We are not charging the team $20.00 fee. They can sell anything they want to (just not the vendor part) to raise money for their team. And we will have a Relay Table so we can get the word out about our relay. Our staff partner is going to be at that booth. (no charge for the booth) My team will be in the kitchen part and we are doing food. (Hopefully) I think that covers the booth part

How have you been adding up the money??? If I have what I have said (like 20 cars) then we would have raised...$690.00 so far.

Now our Paint the County Purple...
This one I am just now starting. I have just done the research on it to see how much to charge for like purple and window paint. All I have right now on this is I went online and found already made purple bow for a good price. But again I am still working on this. Here is the fun part though... Each team is going to have a flyer that has the prices on it. They will go around to different businesses and people to ask them if the would like to help us "Paint the County Purple." The team with the most sells will win a pizza party!!! This is a good way to get the teams involved in it too. I have also told the vendor/craft people about it and ask them if they wanted to to wear purple that day.

This just what I have done so far... If you have anything to add let me know or if you have any question I will try to answer them. I hope this helps someone out because I had no idea where to start for a Relay For Life event like this.

Thank You~
Sarah

So here is the flyer for the car show. I thought I had the registration form to but it is on my work computer. Will post it later. Also here is the design for the T shirts.

Here is the Craft & Vendor flyer again the form on is at work I will post later.

Here is the first draft of the flyer for the 5K Run/Walk. I think it is to busy so I will be doing more to it later.

And I am throwing this one in because I think it is a great idea. I made this NEWSLETTER to put on Facebook and I will be printing them out for our Relayers so they know what is coming up. It has a little of everything!!

Well I think that is it for now. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!! Thank you for reading!!!

~Sarah